In The Distance, Fading
by Wolf126
Summary: "He was not dead yet. Not exactly. Parts of him were dead already, but certainly other parts were waiting for something to happen. Something grand." Because Commander Nolan Shepard has come too far and lived too long just to die now. ME3. One-shot.


_Character(s): Commander Nolan Shepard._

___Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing. The _Mass Effect___ trilogy belongs solely to BioWare and EA... Believe me, if I did own it, there'd have been quite a few changes and not so many plot-holes. I would have made a happy ending available, and there'd be absolutely no reverse logic!_

___Also, the second and third lines of this fic are not mine. Because I thought they were highly appropriate, I incorporated them from one of Richard Siken's poems, named 'Road Music.' And some of the memory parts have been taken and re-adapted from my other fics. Just sayin'. The rest of this fic were found on my hard-drive, and I decided to publish it as-is so someone out there might enjoy it._

___All right. So an explanation is in order for this fic. The first time I played through the ending of my Collector's Edition: Mass Effect 3, I was completely blown away by the moment when Shepard is knocked unconscious while trying to race past Harbinger and reach the beam. I was amazed by the sheer will-power it would have taken for him to get up again, not to mention the strength it would require for him to cross the rest of that wasteland, and I decided that I had to write a fic about what was going through Shepard's head during this scene. _

_______**IMPORTANT NOTICE:** This piece takes place in the same universe as my some of my other ME fics, including (1) _**Wishful Thinking**_, (2) **Into The Void**, (3) _**Prometheus**_, (4) _**Elevator Revelations**_, (5) **Heart**, (6) _**No Exit**_, and (7) _**To Build A Home**_._

_______Constructive criticism is, as always, welcome. Please, no flames._

* * *

**In The Distance, Fading**

**oOoOo**

_"God . . . they're all gone. . . ."_

He was not dead yet. Not exactly.

Parts of him were dead already, but certainly other parts were waiting for something to happen. Something grand.

At least, that much he was still aware of because, in his mind, he knew that he could not be in Heaven when he was already in such excruciating pain. To his logic, there would be no pain in Heaven. Hell was another matter altogether, although he supposed being there would feel a lot worse.

But Commander Nolan Shepard didn't quite believe in either of those places, however. They were simply too good to be true, two polarizing forces that were powerful enough to split the entire galaxy into two vastly different factions: Good and evil, Heaven and Hell.

But there was no such thing as an inherently good or evil man, was there? Just men with varying faults and failings, virtues and accomplishments. They filled the galaxy with various shades of gray, blurring the lines between virtue and vice, so Heaven and Hell were too cut and dry, placed on opposing ends of a nonexistent spectrum. One was white, the other was black, and all of reality was gray.

So where did gray fit in? If anything, there was a nothingness that mediated between the two, neither for pain nor pleasure, and in this he wanted to believe. It was all he wanted: A place where he could rest for all eternity without dwelling upon his failures. A place where he would cease to be.

_"Did we get anyone to the beam?"_ asked one hopeful voice, daring to believe that this war was already on the decline. Daring to hope that not all had been in vain and that they weren't all going to die.

In the most distant recesses of his mind, he was aware of the voices speaking through his earpiece. He lay there on the hard ground, eyes closed, mind deadened to the world. The only thing he could concentrate on was the pain, the sheer agony and rawness of his flesh, and where it was torn and bleeding profusely. His insides burned with the intensity of a thousand suns while his head hurt as if from the mother of all migraines.

_"Negative,"_ responded someone defeatedly and with some small degree of bitterness. _"Our entire force was decimated."_

The pain was unbearable and seemed to be building as he gradually regained more and more consciousness. Finally, he opened his eyes and groaned. He felt like he'd been mauled by a full-grown krogan or an equally painful thing before being beaten repeatedly with hands and fists. Every part of his body ached, and his body was bruised all over from the explosion that had probably saved his life.

So slowly, his every movement sending another jolt of pain throughout his battered body, Shepard grit his teeth and pulled himself together. He decided that the fall must have given him a concussion because his eyesight was blurred and hazy, leaving him unable to see the few meters in front of him very clearly.

He struggled to rise, fingers digging into the mud as he scrambled for some sort of footing.

_"It's too much!" _cried the first voice, audibly panicked. _"We need to regroup! Fall back to the buildings!"_

Once on his feet, he blinked. Harbinger was gone. He didn't care where. And the beam lay before him, unguarded and vulnerable, looking ripe for the taking. But first, he would have to cross the short wasteland of destruction. In his path lay overturned, burning vehicles and gunships, their armor melted completely through, bloody and broken bodies lying strewn about like discarded dolls, and pieces of fiery debris from Earth's atmosphere. Was this really the end of days? It certainly looked it.

_"Hammer is wiped out!"_ cried the first voice. A woman whom he didn't recognize. _"All forces, retreat!"_

He stood there, utterly baffled. Why should they retreat now? He was still here, wasn't he? He was still trying. All hope was not yet lost.

Even as his mind swirled in this maelstrom of confusion, he began to move. Each and every step sent that same jolt of agony throughout his body, from the tips of his fingers to the ends of his toes. Every movement jarred his concentration, leaving his eyes to water with the pain of it all. God, his chest felt like it was caving in on itself. He probably had quite a few broken ribs among other things.

_"Pull back! Pull back!"_ The order echoed in his head.

But why? He still needed their support. Couldn't they see he was still fighting? Now was the most opportune time to strike. Harbinger was gone, the beam left unguarded.

He felt something wet and sticky on his cheek. He touched it and brought his hand away to better see it. Blood, and a lot of it. It became rather difficult to breathe as blood fell from his nose as well, lending his mouth its coppery taste.

Groaning with every physical effort, he knew that this would be the closest he'd ever get to the beam. Knew that he owed it to Garrus and Tali to get there in one piece, like he'd promised himself he would. If he died now, then so would they, and their cycle would be extinguished forever. And no one would ever know the lengths to which they sacrificed in order to reach this crucial moment.

Suddenly and without warning, a Marauder stepped out from behind a fallen gunship. It gargled, a sound that was half organic and half synthetic, before opening fire upon him.

Shepard's reflexes weren't nearly what they usually were as his senses were dimmed with an excruciating pain that clouded everything like an impenetrable fog. The Marauder's round hit him squarely in the gut, and he staggered, feeling it rip through what remained of his shields and combat armor.

He raised his Carnifex and fired off a round of his own, one which hit the Marauder squarely between its eyes. With one last cry, it hit the ground and lay still.

Vaguely, he wished that he could remember how it felt to die. He could not, and it bothered him. He still remembered what he'd said to Garrus shortly after being reunited on Omega, of course. How he'd told him of the confusion he'd been dealing with since his apparent resurrection.

* * *

_"I can remember dying, you know," he'd said softly. "Every torturous moment of it, Garrus. Every night, I relive it and I'm there again, floating helplessly in the void, watching the Normandy burn and knowing I'm going to die. It feels like it happened only yesterday, but I know better. I've lost two years of my life after it ended."_

_ "You don't have to remind me," Garrus answered. "You were gone. I was here. I had to go on fighting without you. I remember. And it hurt like hell after you were gone."_

_ "Sometimes, I can still feel my insides clench up and my lungs begin to burn, like I remember just before dying. Doctor Chakwas says there's nothing there, that it's simply phantom pain, but I don't know, Garrus. I just don't know. All I do know is that this isn't my ship, this isn't my crew, and I don't feel like me anymore."_

_ "Well, I'm still here, Shepard, and I'm here for you if ever you need me. If you want to talk, I'm willing to listen."_

* * *

He could remember the pain of dying, but not the dying itself. It was puzzling. The most inopportune moment for his memory to blank out on him. Then, perhaps the Lazarus Project had done him a favor by leaving those memories in the void. Or maybe there was nothing, and time ceases to exist for the dead. Maybe there was just nothing there to remember. He had no way of finding out until he returned to Death, running out of borrowed time.

He could even feel it, slowly winging its way overhead like a vulture, utterly in no hurry because it knew it was only a matter of time before its target succumbed. It had all the time in the world to wait.

He groaned again and clasped his hand over the fresh wound. Blood seeped from between his fingers like grains of sand, marking his path in the dust as he staggered onward like a drunken man.

His concussion effectively cost him his grip on reality as his nightmares began to blur into reality. Voices whispered in the back of his head, too indistinct to be coherent.

"Why me?" he'd asked Admiral Hackett. He didn't want to believe that he was as valuable an asset as both Hackett and Anderson suggested, that he was somehow crucial to the grand scheme of things. He was simply a soldier. Anyone could kill a Reaper if they just knew what to do . . . couldn't they? It wasn't a secret that he alone had mastered. It wasn't like his death would signify the end of days.

_ "Had to be you, Shepard," _answered the ghostly voice of Mordin._ "Someone else might have gotten it wrong." _

In the meantime, the realist in him asked: _Can I do this? _The Reapers were so highly advanced, they were like unto gods to organics, and the romanticist in him asked: _Can I really slay a god?_

A whisper wormed its way into his consciousness, stirring doubt and disbelief._ "You are a great protector, Shepard, but some things are beyond even you," _said the indistinct voice of Thane.

And Legion's sacrifice so profound in the forefront of his mind. _"Does this unit have a soul?"_ he'd asked before dying. And his answer had been, _"Yes."_

"Not yet," he whispered harshly and with his mouth full of blood. "Not yet." He absolutely refused to let his body succumb until the Crucible was firmly in place and victory was secured. Death itself could wait for that. Couldn't it?

He staggered past the fallen Marauder and fell to his knees, wretching up a foul mixture of blood and saliva. It seemed like there had never been a time when he was not in agony, his insides rent to pieces, and his humanity rapidly dwindling. Was there ever? Had there ever been a time when there was just a Nolan Shepard? Where he could live for himself and damn the consequences?

He knew that there had to have been, but could not remember such a time. He could not even remember the last time he'd been called by his first name. Nolan. Had he ever been called such a thing? Had he ever been such a person? Akuze seemed such a very long time ago, almost in his infancy. It was what had gotten him promoted to the N7 program. Everything before that simply seemed nonexistent.

Again, an extraordinary effort found him to his feet and he stumbled forward until he reached the beam. He was quite certain that if he fell again, he would not get up. Rather, he'd stay there, motionless, and let Death claim him. He could hardly keep it together. With as much speed as his body physically allowed him, he staggered into it and felt his body's mass rapidly teleported upwards, losing his center of gravity briefly.

He had arrived on the Citadel, but his sense of vertigo momentarily cost him his consciousness for a few minutes. As a result, he blacked out and felt his legs give out underneath him.

* * *

_Please, read and review to let me know what you think! I know this was pretty depressing, but I'd still like some feedback. Reviews are, as my Minion says, verbal love and we could always do with a little more of that in the world._


End file.
